AT HOME SALON: DOUBLE ACTS
14th May - 9th July 2016
The Grange, 50 Llanvair Drive
Ascot, Berks SL5 9LN
Participating Artists
Rebecca Ackroyd -- Alex Clarke
Cornelia Baltes -- Will Sheridan Jr
Bea Bonafini -- Lindsay Lawson
Emma Hart -- France-Lise McGurn
Gabriel Hartley -- Ann Hirsch
Sarah Maple -- Zadie Xa
Andrew Mealor -- Alex Rathbone
Organised and Curated by
Marcelle Joseph
with
Collaborating "Double Act" Curators
(in order linked to artist pairings above)
Rebecca Ackroyd
Leopold Thun
Lana Bountakidou
Anna McNay
Rozsa Farkas
Valentina Fois
Will Jarvis
Marcelle Joseph Projects is delighted to present At Home Salon: Double Acts, an exhibition in the private residence of the curator in Ascot and showcasing artworks by 14 artists. For the third biennial edition of this exhibition - subtitled Double Acts - Marcelle Joseph has collaborated with a different curator, gallerist, journalist or artist in each of seven different rooms of her home. Each "double act" curating team has in turn chosen two artists to show in their designated area. The collaborating curators include (in alphabetical order): artist Rebecca Ackroyd, Bosse & Baum gallerist Lana Bountakidou, Arcadia_Missa gallerist Rozsa Farkas, independent curator Valentina Fois, The Sunday Painter gallerist Will Jarvis, freelance arts writer Anna McNay and Emalin curator Leopold Thun.
Bios of Participating Artists and Collaborating Curators:
Rebecca Ackroyd (b. 1987, Cheltenham) lives and works in London. She graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2015 after completing her BA in Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art in 2010. Ackroyd's sculptural practice pushes together both abstract and figurative forms in an imagined landscape that hints at interaction or performance and explores notions of scale. At once inviting moments of up close intrigue or stacking works up high to test the limits of a space, evoking a sense of familiar territory whilst simultaneously striving to exist in their own world. As she endeavour's to carve out a practice that generates objects and images that explore ideas of the unknown or uncanny, of something yet to be experienced. The works adopt a claustrophobic or manic language that hints at brutality or violence whilst exploring a more intimate or domestic space of seductive colours and heavily laboured surfaces, whilst resonating distinct undertones of an unseen underworld both exciting and repelling. Ackroyd employs industrial materials to form structures reminiscent of a building site or architectural models. An imposing bricked construction that hints at a tower block or medieval castle and conjures ideas of a damsel in distress or suburban neglect. These somewhat austere sculptures are interrupted by jewel-like wax casts of plates, taps or body parts, at once relocating the work back in the real world as it slips between everyday mundanity and make believe. Ackroyd has shown her work in London at solo exhibitions at Hunter/Whitfield (2015), Kinman Gallery (2014) and Marsden Woo Gallery (2013). Recent group exhibitions in 2015-6 include: Bloody Life, Herald St, London; Is it heavy or is it light, Assembly Point, London; With institutions like these, Averard Hotel, London; Opals, Galerie Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway; Royal Academy Schools Degree Show, London; Works in Residence, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; and The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London. In 2013, her work was included in Bloomberg New Contemporaries (ICA, London and Spike Island, Bristol).
Cornelia Baltes (b. 1978, Mönchengladbach, Germany) gained her MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2011). Recent and forthcoming solo shows include Limoncello, London, UK (2016); Kunstverein Ulm, DE; Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK (both 2015); DREI, Cologne, DE; Limoncello, London, UK (both 2013); Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK (2012). Recent group shows include MOSTYN, Llandudno, UK (2015); Kunsthalle Nürnberg, DE; DREI, Cologne, DE (both 2014); Museum Folkwang, Essen, DE (2013); Cell Project Space, London, UK; and dienstgebäude, Zurich, CH (all 2012). She is currently based in Berlin.
Bea Bonafini is an Italian, London-based artist, currently studying at the Royal College of Art. She will graduate with an MA in Painting in 2016. Her practice is inter-disciplinary and often textile-based and socially engaged. Bea's work explores expanded painting through sculptural and soft paintings, sewn and knitted fabrics, immersive installations, participatory and spectacular Banquets and choreographed dance pieces. Her work is inspired by confrontation in interpersonal relationships, ritual processes and notions of the sensual and the visceral. Bea has exhibited at ART15, Cob Gallery, Cock 'N' Bull Gallery, the Place Theatre, Twitter HQ London, Tate Modern, Camden Arts Centre, Guest Projects Space, the Royal College of Art, the Slade School of Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, Mile End Art Pavilion and Rialto Theatre Cyprus. Bea Bonafini has an upcoming group exhibition at CAFA Museum, Beijing, China and an upcoming residency at Villa Lena, Italy in Autumn 2016.
Lana Bountakidou is director and co-founder of Bosse & Baum in London.
Alex Clarke (b. 1988, UK) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in London in 2014 after completing his BA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL, London. Past exhibitions include solo and two-person exhibitions at Nicelle Beauchene, New York (with Ellen Macdonald), 2015; Paul Rogers 9w, New York (with Jean Pierre-Pincemin), 2015; Super Dakota, Brussels, 2014; Evelyn Yard, London, 2014; and Gowlett Peaks, London, 2014. Selected group exhibitions include: Lighght, Super Dakota, Brussels, 2015; Showtime, Johannes Vogt, New York, 2014; All That Matters is What's Left Behind, Ronchini Gallery, London, 2014; June Snow, Evelyn Yard, 2014; and Royal Academy Schools Show, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2014.
Rózsa Zita Farkas is curator and founder of Arcadia Missa gallery and publisher. Rozsa has curated and co-curated various projects and exhibitions such as Ways of Living at David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2016), Rehearsals in Instability at Galerie Andreas Huber for Vienna's 'Curated By' Festival (2015), The Posthuman Era Became a Girl at the South London Gallery, London (2014) and Re-Materialising Feminism project across ICA and The Showroom amongst other spaces in London. She is associate lecturer for MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and for BA Fine Art Dissertations at Camberwell College of Arts (both UAL).
Valentina Fois is an independent curator, art consultant and digital strategist. She has curated a large number of exhibitions in London and abroad, including a major digital commission for Art15 funded by the Arts Council England (ACE). In 2010 she founded La Scatola Gallery, London, to promote emerging artists within the UK. Since 2013 La Scatola Gallery has been an art consultancy and its website a platform devoted to digital art. Recent projects: Curator at Upfor, Portland, 2016, Curator at The Other Art Fair, 2016, Curator at The Wrong, New Digital Art Biennale, 2015/2016, The Limited Collection co-curated with Rózsa Zita Farkas (@ArcadiaMissa).
Emma Hart is a British artist who lives and works in London. In 2016 she won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and will have a solo exhibition there and at the Collezione Maramotti in 2017. In 2015 she was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Foundation award for Visual Art. Recent solo exhibitions include: big MOUTH, Grand Union, Birmingham (2015); Sticky, Austrian Cultural Forum, London (2015); Spread, Art Exchange (2015); Giving It All That, Folkestone Triennial (2014); Dirty Looks, Camden Arts Centre (2013); M20 Death Drives, Whitstable Biennale, Whitstable (2012); TO DO, Matt's Gallery, London; Word Processor, Stanley Picker Gallery, London (2012). Recent group exhibitions include: The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery (2015); SUCKERZ, L'Etrangere, London (2015) a joint show with Jonathan Baldock; Only the Lonely, La Galerie CAC Noisy Le Sec, France (2015); Dear Luxembourg, Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg (2015); Hey I'm Mr. Poetic, Wysing Arts Centre (2014); Bloody English, OHWOW Gallery, Los Angeles (2013); The World Turned Upside Down, Mead Gallery, Coventry (2013). Hart was shortlisted for The Jarman Awards 2013, and awarded a Random Acts commission. In 2012 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood / Film and Video Umbrella Awards: Tomorrow Never Knows, with an exhibition at Jerwood Space, London. Hart was resident at Camden Arts Centre with herQuestion Department in 2009 and for The Forest residency at Wysing Arts Centre in 2012. Hart received an MA in Fine Art from the Slade in 2004 and completed her PhD in Fine Art at Kingston University in 2013. Hart is a lecturer on BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins.
Gabriel Hartley (b. 1981, London) lives and works in London and holds a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London and a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art from the Royal Academy Schools, London. Recent solo exhibitions include those at Studio Leigh, London (2016); Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2015); Foxy Production (New York, 2014 and 2012); Brand New Gallery (Milan, 2013); Praz-Delavallade (Paris, 2012); Swallow Street (curated by Sarah McCrory, London, 2009) and a two-man show at Josh Lilley Gallery (London, 2011). Selected group exhibitions include Basic Instinct, Seventeen, London (2015); Bloom, Kinman, London (2015); Architecture of Enjoyment, Marcelle Joseph Projects, London and Athens (2014-15); Open Heart Surgery, the Moving Museum, London (2013); Young London, V22, London (2011); Newspeak: British Art Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2010); Jerwood Contemporary Painting Prize, Jerwood Space, London (2009); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, UK touring exhibition (2008 and 2007); and John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2008). Hartley is represented by Foxy Production in New York.
Ann Hirsch (b. 1985, Baltimore, USA) is a video and performance artist, who examines the influence of technology on popular culture and gender. Her immersive research has included becoming a YouTube camwhore with over two million video views and an appearance as a contestant on Frank the Entertainer...In a Basement Affair on Vh1. She was awarded a Rhizome commission for her two-person play Playground which debuted at the New Museum and was premiered by South London Gallery at Goldsmiths College. Recent solo shows include MIT List Visual Arts Center and the New Museum's online project space First Look. In 2016 she will have a solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine and take part in group shows at Centre de la photographie, Geneva and the International Center of Photography, New York. She is currently based in Los Angeles.
Will Jarvis (b. 1986) Is director and co-founder of The Sunday Painter Gallery in London.
Lindsay Lawson (b. 1982, Biloxi, USA) is an American artist based in Berlin. She received her BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University, her MFA in New Genres from UCLA, and attended the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Her work spans media such as film, video, installation, photography, sculpture, performance, text, and a particular type of contractual legal agreements she called Arrangements. Her practice often deals with issues of presence and objecthood in virtual and physical spaces. Numerous recent projects investigate states of infatuation with virtual personas and both virtual and physical objects. Her first feature-length film, The Smiling Rock was shot in Berlin and is currently in post-production at a residency at 1646 in The Hague. She has exhibited internationally at venues such as Gillmeier Rech, Berlin; Herald St., London; Frutta Gallery, Rome; LAXART, Los Angeles; Yossi Milo Gallery, New York; Carroll/Fletcher, London; 1646, The Hague; Galerie Jeanroch Dard, Brussels; Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig; and Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto.
Sarah Maple (b. 1985, Sussex) is an artist based in Sussex who completed a BA in Fine Art from Kingston University in 2007 and in the same year won the '4 New Sensations' award for emerging artists, run by The Saatchi Gallery. Sarah's artwork, film and performances have been exhibited internationally at galleries and institutions including A.I.R Gallery (NY), AGO (Canada), the Southbank Centre (London), The New Art Exchange (Nottingham), Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast) and Kunisthoone (Estonia). Sarah's work has been the subject of documentaries including ARTE and VPRO. She has also been invited to speak at an Amnesty International event, as well as events at Oxford, Birmingham and Warwick Universities, and the LSE. Sarah has worked collaboratively on film projects with Nick Knight and the Southbank Centre and her work has also been included in publications by the Whitechapel Gallery, Phaidon and Gestalten. In 2015 she released her first book 'You Could Have Done This', a hardback art book of selected works with contributions from Beverley Knowles (curator and writer), Margaret Harrison (artist), Oreet Ashery (artist) and Anne Swartz (professor Art History).
France-Lise McGurn lives and works in Glasgow. She graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2012. Recent exhibitions include NEO-PAGAN BITCH-WITCH!, a group show co-curated with Lucy Stein at Evelyn Yard, London; 3am, a solo presentation as part of Satellites programme at Collective Gallery, Edinburgh and a group show at Studio Leigh, London. Recent performances include Amygdala N.O.S, with Kim O' Neill and Cara Tolmie for Love your Parasites book launch, South London Gallery, London and UKNos Algaes a performance with Kim O'Neill and Cara Tolmie as part of Generation Festival, Tramway, Glasgow.
Anna McNay is a freelance art writer and editor with a particular interest in representations of the body, gender and sexuality. She is Deputy Editor at State Media and Arts Editor at DIVA magazine. She contributes regularly to Studio International, Photomonitor and The Mail on Sunday and has been widely published in a variety of other print and online art and photography journals and newspapers. She has written numerous catalogue essays, including for Eileen Cooper at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Andrew Mealor (b. 1982, UK) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in London in 2012 after completing his BA in Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art & Design. Selected solo exhibitions include: SUBURBAN HALUCINATIONS, Watch It Gallery, London, 2015, DEAD FLOWERS, Fortress, London, 2014, Can I Say, Peles Empire, London 2010. Recent group exhibitions include: DM/1978 Talks to DM/2010, Chelsea Space, London, 2016; Safety Deposit Box, Lockup International, Frankfurt, Germany (co-curated by Celena Ohmer and including Louis Eisner, Mathis Gasser, Emily Jones, Guy Lee, Hannah Lees, Michael Ray-Von, Yuri Pattison, Hayley A. Silverman, Sydney Shen, Jasmin Werner, and Bruno Zhu), 2016; DA DA DA, Peles Empire, London, 2014; Flora Fauna, Kinman Gallery, London, 2014; Home Thearter, Baro, Sao Paulo, 2013; Acid Pram, Corfu, London, 2013; Red Mansion Art Prize, London, 2013; Original / Copy 1, Peles Empire, London, 2012; 3D 2D 3D 2D, Camberwell Space, London, 2011; Premiums 2011, Royal Academy of Arts, London; 2011, Pretty Deep, Royal Standard, Liverpool, 2009; Meet Me Round The Corner In Five Minutes, Spike Island, Bristol, 2008; and Bloomberg New Contemporaries, New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, 2007.
Alex Rathbone (b. 1987, Middlesex, UK) lives and works in Berlin. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include: LISTE w/ The Sunday Painter, Basel, 2016 (solo/upcoming); FACE TO FACE. A selection of International Emerging Artists From the Ernesto Esposito Collection, Palazzo Fruscione, Salerno, 2016 (upcoming); Down, The Sunday Painter, London, 2016; break the thread, Frutta, Rome, 2015; A British Art Show, curated by Joseph Buckley, Meyohas, New York, 2015; Urban Chaos, as part of the project Dearth, Boiler Room, online, 2015; Oh, Of Course, You Were Berry Picking, Drei, Cologne, 2015; Prehistory...TBC, Cactus gallery, Liverpool, 2014; Shortish Long Hair/ Overnight Money (an Uncontrollable Urge), Plaza Plaza, London, 2013.
Will Sheridan Jr. (b. 1985, Brussels) is an American artist based in London who graduated with an MFA from Goldsmiths University in London in 2014. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include: Take the Weight, SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen, 2016 (upcoming); Sad Sweat Kronenbourg, Schulden Programme, London, 2015 (solo); Schulden Programme at Bold Tendencies, London, 2015; and Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall, ICA, London and World Museum, Liverpool, 2014-15.
Leopold Thun (b. 1990, Switzerland) is founder and director of Emalin, a nomadic project space that will open as a gallery in London in September 2016. Leopold is currently finishing his Masters in Global Conceptualism at the Courtauld Institute (2016) and this summer will mark the second edition of the Thun Ceramic Residency, a residency programme he started in 2015 in Bolzano, Italy.
Zadie Xa is a London-based Canadian artist whose work explores identity, desire and personal fantasy. Zadie completed an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2014) and a BFA from Emily Carr University (2007), Vancouver, Canada. Selected exhibitions include: With Institutions Like These (curated by Victor Wang and Alex Meurice),The Averard Hotel, London (2016); Meduse-Caput, Westminister Waste, London (2016); Living Room in the Tropics, NTU Centre of Contemporary Art, Singapore (2015); Silent Barn, Brooklyn, New York (2015); Video Nacht Klub, Brussels Art Department, Brussels (2015); Space Station 51, Area 51, London (2015); Faux Sho, Assembley House, Leeds (2015); Studio Voltaire Open: 2015 (selected by Cory Arcangel and Hanne Mugaas), Studio Voltaire, London (2015); Figuratively Speaking, Marcelle Joseph Projects at heike moras art, London, (2015); Frosted and Defrosted, Albion 44, London (2014); Inoperative Mythology, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London (2014); Premio Ibercaja Pintura Joven 2010, Centro Cultural Ibercaja Guadalajara, Centro Cultural Ibercaja Huesca, Museo Camon Aznar, Zaragoza, Spain (2011); Premio Ibercaja Pintura Joven 2010, Fundación Fran Daurel de Barcelona, Museo Maeztu de Estella, Navarra, Spain (2010); and My Skin is Dark but My Heart is White (solo), La Fresh Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2010).
